Saving Severus
by JPxLE
Summary: Oneshot. What happened the night James Potter saved Severus Snape? And what if somebody else was there that night?


James Potter was staring at Lily Evans from across the common room. Nothing unusual there. Lily, as if sensing his stare, looked up. She met his eyes for a moment, then scowled, going back to her book. Suddenly, Lily heard a commotion outside the portrait.

"Dilligrout!", someone was shouting. "DILLIGROUT, I TELL YOU!"

Lily, James and a few other students stopped what they were doing, and rushed over to the portrait hole. Others just watched on in amusement.

James pulled back the portrait to see his fellow Marauder, Peter Pettigrew, outside, about to punch the Fat Lady.

"James, thank heavens – you've got to come quick!", Peter exclaimed.

James looked at him questioningly.

"I'll explain on the way.", Peter said, tugging James's arm. As they walked away, Peter started whispering furiously. James stopped in his tracks, yelling, "He did _WHAT?_", before breaking into a sprint.

As the two boys disappeared around the corner, most of the Gryffindors made their way back into the common room. Lily, however, wanted to know what was wrong. Lily always had to know everything, she hated being out of the loop. So, looking around her and seeing nobody there, she hurried after them as quietly as she could.

She spotted them running down the marble staircase, through the Entrance Hall and out the front doors. As soon as she the doors closed behind them, she ran as fast as she could down the staircase. She opened the door slowly, in case they saw her. Just then, she had a brilliant idea, cursing herself for not thinking of it sooner. She cast a Disillusionment charm on herself, beaming proudly. Charms was her best subject.

She slipped past the front door and looked across the grounds. Damn! She had lost them. Sighing, she decided this was one mystery she would not solve.

Just as she was turning to go back inside, she noticed a movement in the grounds. She gasped when she saw what it was. It was a stag – the most beautiful animal she had ever seen. It had a shiny coat and ran so gracefully that Lily couldn't help but stare. Her gaze followed the stag as it galloped across the grounds. It stopped in front of a tree. Well, not just any tree. This particular tree was the Whomping Willow.

The Whomping Willow had been planted the year Lily had started at Hogwarts, and remained a mystery to her as to why it had been planted. People used to play games, daring each other to see how close to the trunk they could get, until Lily's third year, when Davey Gudgeon had nearly lost an eye. After that, they had been forbidden to go near it.

Lily nearly cried out as the Whomping Willow started flailing around, it's branches going all over the place. The stag, however, didn't seem worried, or even surprised. It just stood there. As suddenly as the movement had started, it stopped. Astonished, Lily crept across the grass, trying to get closer to the magnificent stag. As Lily made her way across the grounds, she thought she saw the stag turn into a human-shaped thing. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, to see that it had disappeared completely. Great. Now she was imagining things.

She heard noise coming from inside the tree. Inside the tree? Now she really was losing it! The noise got louder. Instinctively, she hid behind the nearest bush, completely forgetting she was invisible.

All of a sudden, two figures burst out of the Whomping Willow. Lily looked from the two figures to the tree. On closer inspection she noticed a small opening at the base of the tree. A tunnel maybe? But where would it lead? Another figure crept out of the opening she was staring at, followed by another.

It was full moon, so it wasn't too difficult to make out who the figures were. Severus Snape, Lily's ex-best friend, who she now hated just as much as the person standing over him, was lying on the ground. She couldn't tell if he was injured. The person standing over him was none other than James Potter. Strangely though, he didn't look happy to have Snape on the ground. In fact, he was now bending over him with a worried expression on his face. This was extremely odd behaviour for him, as it was no secret that Potter and Snape were sworn enemies.

She could hear Potter muttering under his breath. The third figure moved, drawing Lily's attention to him. She could see now that it was Sirius Black.

"Sirius, what were you thinking?", she heard Potter hiss at him.

"He needed to be taken down a peg or two, that-", Black retorted, angrily.

"He could have _died_!", Potter said, his voice getting louder. "Then you would have been just as bad as the rest of your family. Is that what you want? To end up in Azkaban?"

"Prongs, I swear, I didn't mean to get him hurt, just teach him a lesson, scare him a bit y'know?"

"Right", Potter muttered to himself, frantically. "What do we do? Er, Pete, go wake Poppy, tell her we have a patient for her. Sirius, you can help me-"

He was interrupted by an ear-splitting howl.

"Crap! Sirius, go, quick!" James exclaimed.

Sirius morphed into a shaggy, black dog before Lily's eyes, and ran back into the tunnel.

Meanwhile, Peter had left. Lily could see him running towards the castle. She could still hear Potter muttering to himself.

Now that things had quietened down, Lily had time to think about the situation. What was Severus doing out here in the first place? Why were the Marauders trying to save him? They were enemies! Where was Remus? Shouldn't he be controlling his friends? Black could turn into a dog? But he's not on the list of registered Animagi. Lily knew the list by heart – it wasn't too hard, there were only seven registered Animagi this century! So, was he born an Animagi then? Or-

Her thoughts were interrupted when she spotted a movement. Potter had levitated Severus and was beginning to float him towards the school. Wow, that was actually quite impressive.

Out of nowhere, a branch swung towards the two boys and whacked Potter on the head. He collapsed, as did Severus, a few feet away. Potter scrambled, trying to get to his feet, when another branch came his way and hit him in the stomach. He was knocked to the ground, but this time didn't move. The tree wasn't interested in Severus, he was too far away.

Lily looked on in horror as the tree proceeded to thump Potter repeatedly. She made a snap decision. Even though Potter was a complete toe-rag, he had still helped Severus, his enemy, from what Lily had heard. And he _had_ become more mature and less annoying this year. And he wasn't _too_ bad at being Head Boy. But Lily thought this had less to do with his wanting to do well in school and more with impressing her.

She pulled her wand from her cloak and tried to levitate Potter. He rose slightly from the ground before flopping back down. Lily frowned. Potter had made it look a lot easier. She abandoned her wand and ran towards him, ducking when branches came her way. She shook him desperately, to no avail. As a last resort, she grabbed one of his arms and pulled as hard as she could, dragging him out of harms way. As soon as she was far enough so that the tree couldn't reach her, she stopped, panting.

She shook Potter's shoulders again. This time, he stirred. Opening his eyes, he murmured her name questioningly.

How did he know? Wasn't she invisible? She looked down at herself. The Disillusionment charm had worn off. Crap.

She heard noises coming from the castle. Looking up, she saw Peter hurrying towards them, followed closely by Madame Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore. Madame Pomfrey hurried to Potter, who was now sitting up, staring at me in disbelief.

Professor Dumbledore asked Potter, Peter and Lily what had happened and we told him. They said something about a furry little problem, which Lily didn't really get, but Dumbledore seemed to.

"Miss Evans, Mr. Pettigrew", he addressed us. "You may return to your dormitories. Needless to say, you will not mention this to anyone. I daresay Mr. Potter and Mr. Snape would benefit from a trip to the Hospital Wing."

Lily and Peter nodded and ran the whole way to Gryffindor tower, not speaking until Peter showed Lily a shortcut I'd never seen before. She muttered thanks, and the pair continued towards the common room. When they entered, Lily nodded at Peter, who nodded back. They each went their separate ways into their dormitories.

The next morning, Lily woke up at 6am. Needless to say, none of her room-mates were up. She decided to visit the Hospital Wing to see Potter. Well, she needed to know the whole story, right?

She crept in quietly and looked around. There were six beds occupied. A small girl with blonde hair was in the closest bed, and Sirius Black was in the bed next to her. In their beds in the row on the left lay James Potter , Remus Lupin, Severus Snape and a fifth-year Ravenclaw boy with mousy brown hair. Wait a minute. What was Remus doing here? He wasn't involved. Yet he has scratches all over his face. Odd.

She walked towards Remus, the Marauder she knew and liked the most. As she neared, someone stirred. She followed the sound to see that it was Potter. She sighed. Well, he could tell the story as well as anyone, she supposed.

She sat in the chair next to Potter's bed. He looked surprised.

"Um, hey, Lily", he said to her in a barely audible voice.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?", she asked him, slightly angry, slightly amused.

"I, er, can't. It's not my secret to tell."

"What?" Lily exploded. "I save you from the freakin' Whomping Willow and you won't even tell me what you were doing there? Maybe next time I'll just leave you there."

"Sorry", James replied, meekly.

"I'll make it worth your while" Lily wheedled.

"You can tell her, James. I trust her", came the voice from the next bed. Lily jumped. She hadn't heard him stirring.

"You sure?"

Remus nodded in reply.

"Okay, um, well, y'know how we sometimes talk about Remus' furry little problem?", James began. Lily nodded, impatiently. "Well, he doesn't have a badly behaved rabbit. He, er, he's kind of a werewolf."

"Yeah, and?"

Remus looked shocked. "You – you mean you knew? And you don't care?", he spluttered.

"Well, it wasn't too hard to figure out, Remus. I didn't say anything 'cause I knew you'd tell me when you were ready. And why would I care? It's not your fault! But what I want to know was about last night. Like, why was Severus there? And how did Black turn himself into a dog?"

James shook his head slightly, amused. "Okay, well, on the full moon, Remus goes through the tunnel in the Whomping Willow. The tunnel leads to the Shrieking Shack. The noises the villagers hear aren't spirits, it's Remus. So anyway, Snape really pis- er, annoyed Sirius earlier, and _Sirius _thought it would be hilarious to tell Snape to go down there tonight. Pete told me about it so I went down to get Snape out. And well, you saw the rest. Oh, yeah, and me, Pete and Sirius are Animagi", he added the last part as an afterthought, as though it were nothing.

Lily's jaw dropped.

"Sirius is a dog, which is why we call him Padfoot. Peter is a rat, hence the nickname Wormtail. I'm a stag and well, you can guess why we call Remus Moony."

"You were that stag?", Lily asked, without really thinking.

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason. Just, um, trying to take it all in."

Lily asked a few questions about how they became Animagi without help and why they weren't registered.

After a while, Lily asked quietly, "So, why did you save Severus? I thought you hated him."

"Oh, we do hate him. Trust me. But I still couldn't let him die. Same way you couldn't let me die, even though you can't stand me", he explained in a completely matter-of-fact tone.

Lily blushed a little. "Well, I guess you're not so bad after all then. Maybe I was wrong about you."

James looked like Christmas had come early. "Really?"

Lily smiled. "Yeah", she checked her watch. It was 7.30. She decided she'd better go back to her dorm before her friends woke up.

"Bye, Remus", she said, but he was already asleep.

She turned to James, who was now sitting up in his bed. She leaned down and hugged him.

"Bye, James", she whispered, pulling herself away.

"You called me James."

"I guess I did. I can always go back to calling you Potter, if you'd prefer..."

"No, no, I like when you call me James", he told her hastily.

She turned to leave. She walked a few steps, before turning back.

"I want to try something", she said simply as she walked back to his bed. He looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face.

Lily didn't know why she did it, she just did. She sat down on his bed, put her hand on his shoulder and lightly touched her lips to his. She quickly stood up, smiled at him and walked away. When she reached the door, she glanced back. James was sitting in the same position, his hand on his mouth, looking awestruck. She giggled and continued out the door.

She was walking down the hall, when she heard a yell from the Hospital Wing she had just left.

"**Oi! Sirius! Wake up! Lily Evans just kissed me!**"

_A/N: Please review and let me know what you think! _

_I love Lily and James, so if you know any good stories about them, let me know :D_


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